To begin using Twitter with SocialMiner you should visit the Twitter search page:
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You should try a few searches on this page to zero in on what you find interesting and actionable and also note the volume. For example, the Twitter search returns the 15 most recent results by default so look at the oldest result to see long it's taken to get 15 tweets for your particular search. This volume will change over time but this gives you a starting point to measure the volume that SocialMiner will be collecting for your search.

There is an advanced tab which allows you to implement more complex keyword searches and when you execute a search from the advanced tab it compiles into the Twitter search notation. There's also a page that explains the search operators.

A few notes on the advanced search:

The location criteria will only provide exact results in for Twitter users who have turned on geotagging which is not common. Also, if no geotagging is turned on, it will leverage a users stated location in the profile. This might be useful but probably isn't useful in most situations.

If your team is only handling posts in a certain language they you will likely find the language filter pretty useful.

Once you are satisfied with your search, then right-click the RSS icon that appears on the right side of the page and copy the RSS feed URL. This is the URL that you paste into the SocialMiner Feed configuration when using an "RSS" type feed. If you choose to use a "Twitter Stream" feed on SocialMiner then you won't be able to use any of the advanced search features of Twitter, so the Twitter Stream feed type is probably best left for specialized applications.

Additional Tips:

If you want to find all of the tweets directed at an account then search for "@username". This allows you to monitor all of the public Tweets directed at an account without having to authenticate that account. If you are the account owner, then you should set up a "Twitter Account" feed on SocialMiner instead of using RSS. The Twitter Account Feed will capture all of the mentions (@username) as well as the direct messages (private messages).

If you are looking for Tweets related to three products you have the option of creating one Twitter search for all three products and configuring that on Socialminer as one feed, or you could create three Twitter searches and configure three feeds on SocialMiner. One search for all three products is a bit simpler to set up and maintain on SocialMiner because it's a single feed, but if you want to put the three products into different campaigns then you would set up feed for each product.